Rethinking the Ideas of Individualism, Collective Responsibility and Unjust Indictment
Abstract
This work is a critical examination of the ideas of individualism, collective responsibility and the issue of who takes the blame or responsibility for mistake or error committed within the society or within a particular group of people. The question and discourse of individualism and collective responsibility cuts across the areas of ethics, law, politics and the general philosophical discourses. This paper carefully crafted within the realm of ethics, raises critical questions whether a collective can be defined as a moral agent capable of taking blame when the situation calls for it or is it only the individual that can be termed a moral agent? To answer this question, two schools of thought have emerged, the one calling for the taking of a collective as a moral agent that is capable of moral evaluation and the one taking a collective as a non-moral agent incapable of moral evaluation, independently of the moral agents that are occupants of the collective. This debate will be critically looked into and thereafter reach a reasoned conclusion. The methodology adopted by this work is critical analysis, conceptual clarification, and reconstruction of relevant materials. The paper reiterated that there are consequences for every action whether caused by the individual person or by a group of individuals. Ultimately, the paper concludes that either the individual or collective action whether good or bad has its consequences on the society and diminishes the principle of common good. Thus, there is need to promote the principle of shared responsibility which will translate to the welfare and wellbeing of humanity.